Food

Whether Served with a Beer in Honolulu, or Goji Berries in Dusseldorf, Poke is One of the Islands' Global Exports

Where did all this poke come from?

You may have asked yourself that as poke—the chopped raw fish salad—begins to appear everywhere, from Paris to Pennsylvania. The short answer is, poke is another global food with deep roots in Hawai‘i.

Native Hawaiians have long known the pleasures of seasoned raw seafood. Being surrounded by the ocean probably has something to do with it. Centuries before Western contact, native Hawaiians would prepare i‘a maka (raw fish) and chop up reef fish (as in the striped and brightly colored fish you see …